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14 Quotes about the Purpose of Theater

Many late night conversations between artists can find their way to discussing their medium and its purpose. The profound idea of “why” is often the primary motivating factor for why a creative type does what they do. Over the generations, countless great minds have shared their thoughts. Here is a collection of 14 quotes about theater’s purpose to stimulate the mind, heart and soul.

Do you agree or disagree with any of these quotes? What are your favorite quotes about theatre? Share your thoughts with StageLight in the comments!

The word theatre comes from the Greeks. it means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation. The theatre is a spiritual and social X-ray of its time. The Theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.-Stella AdlerThe theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one’s office for a job.-Tennessee WilliamsI have never regarded any theater as much more than the conclusion to a dinner or the prelude to a supper.-Max BeerbohmThe role of the artist is to ask questions, not to answer them.-Anton Pavlovich ChekhovArt is nothing more than creating an emotion in your own form.-Shannon L. AlderAn artist’s job is to captivate you for however long we’ve asked for your attention.-Aaron SorkinThe theatre is an attack on mankind carried on by magic: to victimize an audience every night, to make them laugh and cry and suffer and miss their trains.-Iris MurdochArt should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.-Cesar A. CruzThere are those who go to the theatre as they would go to a brothel.-Antonin ArtaudAn artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else in the world can tell, what it is like to be alive.-James BaldwinThe purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.-Pablo PicassoI regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.-Thornton WilderFrom the start is has been the theatre’s business to entertain people. It needs no other passport than fun.-Bertolt BrechtTheatre is a weapon. For that reason, it must be fought for.-Augusto Boal